VRAI - Drill Baby Drill

• Following their best week since November 2020, U.S. equity markets slipped this past week as China's apparent emergence from COVID lockdown lifted global benchmark interest rates and commodities prices.
• Persistently elevated energy prices - the 'fuel' of stagflation - remain the most significant economic and geopolitical threat. The S&P 500 declined for the eighth week out of the past nine.
• Ahead of the annual REITweek industry conference, the Equity REIT Index declined 2.0% with 15-of-19 property sectors in negative territory while the Mortgage REIT Index declined by 0.6%.
• The U.S. economy added 390k jobs in May, snapping the streak of 12th straight month of job growth above 400k. While signs of moderating wage pressures and an uptick in the participation rate were encouraging, retail hiring declined by the most since the COVID lockdowns.
• Timber REIT PotlatchDeltic announced that it will acquire CatchMark Timber in a $600M deal, adding to its portfolio of over two million acres of land. Elsewhere, AvalonBay noted that apartment rent growth continued to accelerate in May with rent growth of nearly 14%.

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